[Voronwe]

I'm now interested in this positively conclusive idea that Eru is the same as the Christian God. I noted before that Tolkien thought it was a neat idea to fuse legend with religion, but I'm not sure that he ever actually drew that comparison to his own writings.

Hidden away in the depths of History of Middle Earth X is a piece of writing called the 'Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth'. It is, in my opinion, one of Tolkien's deepest and most significant pieces of writing. It takes the form of a discussion between Finrod Felagund and Andreth, a hitherto unknown woman of the house of Beor. They discuss the relation and differences between elves and men, and especially the original 'fall' of men - their corruption by Morgoth.

In this conversation Andreth speaks of an 'Old Hope' amoung men - that, to finally achieve the defeat of Morgoth and the unmarring of Arda, Eru must enter into his own creation:

'What then was this hope, if you know?' Finrod asked.
'They say,' answered Andreth: 'they say that the One will himself enter into Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end."

And later, Finrod makes this comment:

For, as it seems to me, even if He in Himself were to enter in, He must still remain also as He is: the Author without. And yet, Andreth, to speak with humility, I cannot conceive how else this healing could be achieved. Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceiveable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him.

These two quotes plainly refer to the incarnation of God as Christ, the second making an explicit distinction between God the Father ('the Author without'), and God the Son (the incarnation of Eru) as in Christian theology. Eru is, at least to those of the 'Old Hope', equivalent to the Christian God.

Tolkien makes this even clearer in the commentry to the Athrabeth:

Since Finrod had already guessed that the redemptive function was originally specially assigned to Men, he probably proceeded to the expectation that 'the coming of Eru', if it took place, would be specially and primarily concerned with Men: that is to an imaginative guess or vision that Eru would come incarnated in human form. This, however, does not appear in the Athrabeth.

Sorry about the high density of quotation in this post, but I felt that the quotes from the Athrabeth explained themselves better than I ever could hope to.